Since African swine fever (ASF) struck the island of Hispaniola in 2021, Amy Delgado, DVM, has been deployed five times to the Dominican Republic (DR) and twice to Haiti to support the USDA’s response to this ASF outbreak.
Delgado is a veterinary epidemiologist and serves as the director of the Center for Epidemiology and Animal Health.
Progress has been slow in Haiti and the DR, and challenges continue, but APHIS is seeing some positive steps moving forward and will continue to work with the DR to address many of the risks there, Delgado shared during a Swine Health and Foreign Animal Disease Bullet Session at the Iowa Pork Congress.
A Look Back: History of ASF in the Western Hemisphere
In order to understand what’s happening now with ASF in Hispaniola, Delgado says it’s important to understand the history of this disease in the Western Hemisphere. An outbreak of ASF was confirmed in swine samples from the DR in July 1978, followed by confirmation in swine samples from Haiti in January 1979.
The disease was fairly widespread at the time of detection, and the response was a little disorganized initially, she explained.
“They were focused on the population around infected premises and the surrounding areas, but they couldn’t get ahead of the disease,” Delgado said. “So, the Dominican Republic, after about a year of going through that experience, decided to formalize their eradication program and move forward with a whole island depopulation approach.”
The DR completed the eradication of all swine by 1980, with their last case confirmed in August of 1980. Because the island of Hispaniola is so integrated, however, they weren’t able to declare disease freedom until Haiti had also brought the disease under control.
“The Haitian program took even longer to get coordinated for a variety of reasons. The disease impact peaked in 1980, but the response to the disease was really slow. It took them even longer to adopt a whole island depopulation strategy by 1983. It took them two years to complete that whole island depopulation, but they did get through it.”
But it was very expensive. The DR eradication cost about $15 million and the Haiti eradication was $24 million, Delgado said. In both cases, well over one million animals had to be eradicated.
“There was a lot of trauma within communities with producers and those who were involved in raising swine. At the time, the military was involved in this program. There were a lot of scars left behind by taking this approach, but it was very successful in that they were able to eradicate the disease,” she said. “They brought in some Specific Pathogen-Free pigs, used sentinels, identified there was no virus remaining, and were able to eventually restock.”
A Shocking Disappointment in 2021
When the disease was reintroduced and discovered in 2021, Delgado said it led to similar conversations, struggles and challenges in controlling the deadly ASF virus.
“Following that detection, APHIS was on the ground,” Delgado explained. “From the beginning, we had been in partnership with them looking at shoring up diagnostics and laboratory supplies well before the outbreak occurred. Once the disease had been identified, we rapidly provided personnel to support things like technical support, expertise, diagnostics, staffing support for their laboratory, training, and also working to collaborate with other international organizations under the global framework for transboundary animal diseases.”
However, after a year of working in the DR, Delgado said the team began to really assess where they were at and knew progress had been slow for many reasons. Surveillance and control activities by the DR had been somewhat limited, and there were a lot of political complexities involved in the response.
“Based on those outcomes, we ended up deciding late last year to pivot and refocus, looking at establishing structures and processes to support a program that will be in place for a while to ensure progress,” she said. “We don’t have a change in our goals or objectives. We’re going to continue to focus on ensuring the virus does not spread to other countries.”
Challenges to Stopping the Disease Today
ASF has basically spread everywhere on Hispaniola. Biosecurity is extremely challenging, as it is very difficult to clean and disinfect farms in this area.
“Most of the reporting on the Dominican Republic side has been through passive reporting of sick pigs and dying pigs. In Haiti, they were sending out teams to sample and collect small batches of samples from all these different areas to try and understand where the disease was. But it spread very, very quickly to all parts of the island,” Delgado explained.
In a publication that came out late last year, it included a map looking at the number of confirmed outbreaks. Delgado said it showed both countries have areas of ongoing disease spread and high numbers of caseloads in areas with high densities of pigs.
“The outbreak is still ongoing. They are still experiencing a number of cases every week, and certainly are experiencing a lot of production losses,” Delgado said.
The production impacts have been severe. In 2021, when APHIS first started talking to the countries about their compensation program and what they were seeing, officials thought they may have lost up to about 50% of their swine herd at that time. By 2022, the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service found with nationwide control and eradication efforts ongoing, swine production in the DR fell by 28% year over year in 2022 and an additional 9% decline projected in 2023.
“They went from being 61% self-sufficient in producing pork down to 32% by 2022,” Delgado said. “And while we have been able to export a lot of U.S. pork to the Dominican Republic, it’s certainly a concerning reminder of what this disease can do to a country and a production system.”
What’s Next for Hispaniola?
APHIS has been focused in seven areas, including biocontainment, laboratory diagnostics, surveillance design and implementation, incident command, biosecurity, movement controls, and compensation. They are investing in incinerators at ports as well as dogs which can detect pork and pork products to make sure the disease is contained and doesn’t leave the island.
“Movement control is another area that is really difficult. They have some movement controls in normal working hours, but everybody goes home at a certain time of day, and it becomes hard to prevent animals moving,” Delgado said. APHIS continues to work with officials in the DR to improve disease control measures in targeted and sustainable ways.
Unfortunately, the situation in Haiti is even worse. It’s very difficult to move around the country due to the lack of security. Many parts of the country are run by gangs, so even the Haitian officials are not able to go out and sample pigs or deal with pigs that are dying, she explained.
“As you can imagine, it’s a really tough place,” she said. “The situation in Haiti right now, politically, is very complex. ASF is not their top priority. The country is facing a myriad of other issues. The U.S. government is engaging with Haiti on a number of fronts. We continue to communicate with Haiti in an attempt to make meaningful inroads, but the situation is really, really difficult. I think we are going to be fighting with this disease there for quite some time to come.”
Read More:
USDA Commits to Help Haiti, Dominican Republic Fight African Swine Fever
Haiti Reports Outbreak of African Swine Fever
Dominican Republic Confirms Positive Case of African Swine Fever
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ASF in the Western Hemisphere: What’s Different 40 Years Later?
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